Move away from GtkStatusIcon?

[hasufell]

Gtk3 is starting to throw deprecation warnings about it. With -Werror I get:

main.c:235:12: error: 'gtk_status_icon_get_size' is deprecated
      [-Werror,-Wdeprecated-declarations]
    return gtk_status_icon_get_size(tray_icon);
           ^
/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/deprecated/gtkstatusicon.h:125:23: note: 
      'gtk_status_icon_get_size' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
gint                  gtk_status_icon_get_size           (GtkStatusIco...
                      ^
main.c:262:15: error: 'gtk_status_icon_new' is deprecated
      [-Werror,-Wdeprecated-declarations]
  tray_icon = gtk_status_icon_new();
              ^
/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/deprecated/gtkstatusicon.h:84:23: note: 
      'gtk_status_icon_new' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
GtkStatusIcon        *gtk_status_icon_new                (void);
                      ^
main.c:268:3: error: 'gtk_status_icon_set_visible' is deprecated
      [-Werror,-Wdeprecated-declarations]
  gtk_status_icon_set_visible(tray_icon, TRUE);
  ^
/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/deprecated/gtkstatusicon.h:151:23: note: 
      'gtk_status_icon_set_visible' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
void                  gtk_status_icon_set_visible        (GtkStatusIco...
                      ^
main.c:328:4: error: 'gtk_status_icon_position_menu' is deprecated
      [-Werror,-Wdeprecated-declarations]
                 gtk_status_icon_position_menu,
                 ^
/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/deprecated/gtkstatusicon.h:160:23: note: 
      'gtk_status_icon_position_menu' has been explicitly marked deprecated
      here
void                  gtk_status_icon_position_menu      (GtkMen...
                      ^
main.c:477:7: error: 'gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf' is deprecated
      [-Werror,-Wdeprecated-declarations]
      gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf(tray_icon, icon_copy);
      ^
/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/deprecated/gtkstatusicon.h:97:23: note: 
      'gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf' has been explicitly marked deprecated
      here
void                  gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf    (GtkStatusIco...
                      ^
main.c:479:7: error: 'gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf' is deprecated
      [-Werror,-Wdeprecated-declarations]
      gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf(tray_icon, icon);
      ^
/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/deprecated/gtkstatusicon.h:97:23: note: 
      'gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf' has been explicitly marked deprecated
      here
void                  gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf    (GtkStatusIco...
                      ^
main.c:483:5: error: 'gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf' is deprecated
      [-Werror,-Wdeprecated-declarations]
    gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf(tray_icon, status_icons[0]);
    ^
/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/deprecated/gtkstatusicon.h:97:23: note: 
      'gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf' has been explicitly marked deprecated
      here
void                  gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf    (GtkStatusIco...
                      ^
main.c:486:3: error: 'gtk_status_icon_set_tooltip_text' is deprecated
      [-Werror,-Wdeprecated-declarations]
  gtk_status_icon_set_tooltip_text(tray_icon, tooltip);
  ^
/usr/include/gtk-3.0/gtk/deprecated/gtkstatusicon.h:137:23: note: 
      'gtk_status_icon_set_tooltip_text' has been explicitly marked deprecated
      here
void                  gtk_status_icon_set_tooltip_text   (GtkStatusIco...

Also see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=734826

Does libnotify allow us to do tray icons? https://developer.gnome.org/libnotify/

[hasufell]

I really have no idea of an alternative. It seems gtk upstream is ignorant enough to completely drop this feature?

[elboulangero]

I looked a little bit into that, read a few posts... Some projects drop GtkStatusIcon in favour of Libappindicator, a library made primarily by Ubuntu guys, for their desktop. Apparently it's also used in KDE. But Gnome people don't like it, so they won't use it. As a consequence, when libappindicator is used in an environment where it's not supported (aka outside of Ubuntu and KDE), it falls back to... GtkStatusIcon !

Here is what I bookmarked some time ago:

• https://bethesignal.org/blog/2011/03/12/the-libappindicator-story/
• https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685

[elboulangero]

On my system (Debian unstable), I have two apps that switched to libappindicator: gpodder and transmission-gtk.

[hasufell]

it falls back to... GtkStatusIcon !

The question now is if it provides it's own implementation/symbols instead of the gtk one. Otherwise it's the same story for us.

[elboulangero]

It just uses the deprecated stuff from Gtk3. So it's doesn't solve the problem, just hides it.

[hasufell]

Sounds like someone will have to copy-paste/fork the gtk code that has GtkStatusIcon support into a separate library.

[nicklan]

Yeah, I looked into this a little as well. One other big issue is that interaction with libappindicator icons is very limited. Basically you can only show a menu, so pnmixer would be completely crippled. I think the options are to stay with GtkStatusIcon, or write our own implementation compliant with the XDG spec (http://standards.freedesktop.org/systemtray-spec/systemtray-spec-0.3.html), unless someone else has written a stand-alone library.

[hasufell]

While trying to fix a few deprecation warnings (GtkImageMenuItem is now more or less deprecated), I got sick of this gtk+ politics crap again. You now have to use a GtkBox inside a GtkMenuItem and stuff label and image into it. But glade does not allow you to do that, so you end up manually editing the xml file and every time you use glade, it might break it again.

There is an alternative, called efl which is the library behind enlightenment, but seems to be a generic GUI library. I haven't had a deep enough look on it yet to say whether it would be a good idea to use it. It would ofc involve a major rewrite.

[elboulangero]

But glade does not allow you to do that, so you end up manually editing the xml file and every time you use glade, it might break it again.

Well Glade will probably catch up with the changes in Gtk+, sooner or later. I like to think that Gtk helps me to improve my self-control, my ability to keep cool.... This is how I take it, and it's not only true with Gtk, most of the open-source world challenges my coolness everyday 😆

[hasufell]

Well Glade will probably catch up with the changes in Gtk+, sooner or later.

I doubt it. They said that the glade IDE will not support all possible widget combinations. So to me it is broken.

[hasufell]

https://github.com/encharm/libsystemtray could be an alternative, but has no gtk+ backend yet

[hasufell]

just tested pnmixer on gtk+-4... GtkStatusIcon is removed ...so, have fun

[SilverRainZ]

@hasufell Is GTK+-4 released?

[elboulangero]

It's coming quickly. From now on they will release major versions much more often than before. Take a look here:

https://blogs.gnome.org/desrt/2016/06/13/gtk-4-0-is-not-gtk-4/

It's no surprise that everything marked deprecated disappear in the new major version. But as it's said on this article, if we don't need new features, there's no need to switch to a new major version.

[hasufell]

I suggest that we seriously consider to rewrite (lol, again) pnmixer for a different GUI framework.

[elboulangero]

:) Yeah I think I understand how you feel.

I personally don't mind so much anymore. As long as we stick to Gtk+3, we keep on using the GtkStatusIcon. I can live with that, and I think a lot of people will stick to Gtk+3 for a while anyway. So there's no rush.

Plus, I don't have free time anymore...

[SilverRainZ]

:-) CFLAGS += -Wno-deprecated-declarations

[hasufell]

:-) CFLAGS += -Wno-deprecated-declarations

Those functions are removed now, not deprecated.

[hasufell]

Plus, I don't have free time anymore...

Yeah, me neither. And I think, if I find the free time, I'd not write it in C anyway, so it might as well be a "fork".